TSMC seen leading the EUV pack

EE Times reports TSMC is definitely ahead of the pack in terms of EUV adoption. The company's 7nm plus (N7+) process is world's first commercially available process that uses EUV lithography and the foundry is seen quick adoption by multiple customers. The N7+ process uses EUV for three layers and next year's 5nm node will expand EUV use to about 15 layers.

Some analysts are still a bit concerned about yields. TSMC claims the 7nm+ yields are good but so far we haven't seen any phones ship with 7nm+ CPUs. The biggest 7nm+ client is believed to be AMD due to limited capacity on the 7nm node.

“EUV is only needed for the smallest features, so we expect fabs to continue using optical for most layers,” says Linley Group principal analyst Linley Gwennap. “TSMC says 7nm+ uses EUV for four layers, and the next-generation 5nm node will use EUV for 14 layers. As transistors continue to shrink, EUV is needed for more layers.”

Although TSMC says that its 7nm+ yields are good, we have yet to see any phones ship with 7nm+ processors, Gwennap says. He points out that the initial Mate 30 phones from Huawei use the 7nm Kirin 990, not the 7nm+ 5G version. In contrast, Samsung has been shipping its 7nm EUV chips in its Note 10 smartphones since August, so yields must be reasonable, Gwennap says.

Intel is far behind in EUV, its firt EUV product isn't expected until late 2021 at the earliest.